Parenthood and health: Measuring the effects of maternity leave, paternity leave, and child care

The project team is leveraging unique U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) policies and the DoD’s robust administrative records to examine whether parental support policies, such as maternity and paternity leave and subsidized childcare improve parents’ health outcomes. To study whether these policies can improve parental health, the team is taking advantage of changes to DoD parental supports available to active duty parents. For parents, access to maternity and paternity leave changed at different times, while childcare access depended on location, allowing researchers to interact these policies with one another to estimate if any benefits are multiplicative – or if they offset each other. (author introduction)